Jack always logged out. It was just another habit instilled into him by every cybersecurity class he had ever sat through. “Protect your computer, protect your future,” the robotic voice ran through his head, “One mistake, and your identity is gone.” He should’ve listened.
But that night, just before midnight, with more caffeine running through his veins than blood and his eyes aching from revision, he didn’t. Just one more PDF to print before his 9 am physics final. He furiously pounded the space bar of the library terminal. The PC spun to life, whirring, almost choking as it blew dust out of its fans.
“Username. Password. Print,“ Jack muttered to himself rhythmically as he had done many times before.
He shoved the USB stick back into his pocket and ran towards the printer, rubber soles squeaking on the worn linoleum. Behind him, the monitor didn’t return to the login screen. It simply blinked once, almost like it had taken a photo of him.
Session Active. Time Remaining: 00:59:59
The next morning, Jack couldn’t log in. First, his email rejected him. “Wrong Password.” Then his student portal claimed that “no such student existed.” Minor errors, he figured. Systems go down for maintenance all the time, he thought.
But, at lunch, he scanned his ID card to get back into his building and the gate flashed red.
Access Denied. Unrecognised User!
boomed out of the PA speakers. A staff member came over.
“Do you have your card?” Jack handed it over. She frowned, scanning it with a handheld that looked something like a vintage smartphone. A small beep, then a pause.
“…Are you sure this is you?”
Jack felt his throat tighten. “Yes, I’m sure,” he said, trying to laugh it off.
The woman didn’t smile. “Wait here.” She walked off towards the security desk, whispering something to a guard in a dark jacket. He kept glancing back at Jack while she spoke.
A few tense minutes later, the guard approached. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Jack asked, unsure whether to run or not.
The guard’s reply was monotonous and cold.
“Because this ID belongs to a Jack Parker,” he began, “and you’re not him.”
By 3 pm, Jack was sitting in the administrator’s office. The man behind the counter typed in his name once. Then twice. Then shook his head.
“There doesn’t seem to be a Jack Parker in our system. Are you sure you’re a student here”
“I’m on a full scholarship! Check again,” Jack insisted, growing impatient.
The man behind the desk slid the card back, from the look on his face you’d have thought it was contaminated.
“You’ll need to leave this campus. Now.”
That evening, he was escorted far out of the school grounds. By 9 pm, his bank balance read $0.00, with no record of any transactions having ever been made. And at 11 pm exactly, he received an email.
The weird part, it was from himself.
Subject: Welcome
Body: Thanks for the upgrade, you were never going to make it anyways - J.P.
His phone slipped out of his hand slowly and hit the concrete, the screen shattering into a spider web of cracks. Jack just stared at it, every fibre of his being numb, as the phone’s backlight flickered out.
The days that followed blurred into each other. Every call to tech support began with the same cheery voice.
“Hello Mr. Parker, how may we help you today?”
No matter how much he argued, the response never changed. Every visit to the police ended the same way, too.
“Your fingerprints don’t match our records, please leave the premises or we will have to escort you out.”
Even his closest friends looked at him differently now, hesitating before speaking, and glancing at each other when they thought he wasn’t looking.
Then, one rain-soaked night, he saw himself.
Through the window of his apartment. Same hair. Same hoodie. Same confident smirk plastered across his face.
The ‘other Jack’ turned and locked eyes with Jack, like he was expecting him.
“Who’s out there?” Jack called, before backing away from the window and dropping to the floor hyperventilating, palms sweaty and his thoughts rushing one after another, then nothing.
Jack felt stuck, like he was neither alive nor dead, not on Earth nor anywhere other than Earth. His breathing began to steady, and he pulled himself back up using the window frame as a support.
The window was now empty, no figure, no smirk, no ‘him’. But, beside him now was a door, one that was never present before. It was left ajar, just a crack, light shining in through the edges.
At this point, Jack knew that he had nothing to lose, so without hesitation he opened it all the way and strolled in.
Through this door, though he had no idea how, was the library in the same state it was that evening. The same terminal sat there beneath the hum of the fluorescent lights, the same dust was being kicked up into the air.
Its screen wasn’t black, it was waiting.
ERROR: Duplicate identity detected. Original copy archived
The green text blinked on the otherwise empty screen. Like an unwanted document unwanted by anyone, Jack was archived.
He stepped back, heart pounding. This wasn’t a person doing this. There was nobody to argue with, nobody he could plead to. The thing that took his life was emotionless, spatially and morally unaware.
Weeks later, the ‘other Jack’ was everywhere. Interviews. Press conferences. All out of a TED Talk titled:
“How Artificial Intelligence is Saving Us from Ourselves.”
Jack watched the livestream from a public bench, the cracked screen of his phone held together with a stolen roll of Sellotape and sheer will.
The man on stage smiled warmly, speaking exactly like Jack had at every major milestone in his life, with that human charisma.
And it was then when Jack finally understood. The system made no mistakes, it made an improvement.
Jack went back to his apartment, back through that door to come face-to-face with the terminal for the last time.
This time, however, he made sure he logged out for good.